You
probably already know by now that you can download and play NES
games on your PC/Mac. Keeping the Emulator "hardware"
(Such as Nesticle or Nofrendo) is perfectly legal. However, it is
against the law to download the "software" (The ROMs)
that you do not own the cartridge for. I personally have nothing
against downloading ROMs, especially since I had no way to find
any NES cartridges until recently. But, downloading them is
breaking the law, so be reasonable. And besides, it just isn't
the same playing the games on a computer as the old NES. I do not
offer any ROMs here anymore, but you might find some on the Links
page. The following is a few Emus that are the most common. If
you don't have one already, you may want to pick one up.

NESticle

Requirements:

486 or Pentium w/ DOS or
Windows 95/NT

If using DOS, the DOS4GW
file (Included with the NESticle download here)

Direct X 3.0 for the
Windows version

16 Mb of memory for the
Windows version, 8 Mb for DOS

8-bit or 16-bit
Soundblasters for Dos; Windows uses DirectSound

VESA 2.0 for resolutions
other than 320x200, 256x224, 256x240, and 256x256

Uses .nes game files

NESticle is my personal
favorite Emu. There are a whole lot of features in this sucker;
it even supports Netplay for 2 player games. You can save up to
10 different save game files per game, and NESticle supports
nearly all of the games you can find. The only ones which do not
work for me have been the Wizdom Tree games (Like Sunday Funday.)
Also, NESticle will only play .nes files, while other emu's allow
you to use multiple file extensions. Since the majority of Roms
out there are .nes, it really isn't a huge problem. It's really
speedy, too. On my P200, nearly every game plays with a
rocksteady 60fps. If you have a slow machine, don't worry, you
can have the game skip frames to speed up performance. The only
problem is that the sound sucks when you do skip frames. All in
all, a wonderful program and a must-have.

Pros:

Cons:

Easy to use

Not all games work

Good graphics and sound

Some mapper problems

Fairly fast

Risqué title and icon

iNES

Requirements:

Windows 95/98, DOS, Linux, Unix, or
Macintosh

Pentium 90 (Highly reccomended)

Uses .nes games

MIDI sound

35 dollars

iNES is a big waste of money. The speed of the games is
mediocre, and the sound is horrendous. Also, the sound of the
games are horrendous. However, iNES does emulate a huge number of
mappers, allowing you to play a bunch of different games. All in
all, not a very good deal. If you didn't have to pay to register
it, this might have been good for any non-Windows users. Save the
money and go to FuncoLand to get a system and 10 games.